Bound by Blood 1
by Amouri
Summary: The true story of lab five as I saw it. The tales of the armoured guardians 8D


Barry smirked, gazing down at his cuffed hands in the dingy cell they had placed him in.  
It had now been three weeks since they had caught him, since that measly alchemist runt had somehow escaped him.  
They had sentenced him to execution, after he had willingly confessed his actions.  
He knew there was no way back.  
He sighed and leaned back, the scruffy prison clothes made his skin tingle with irritation.  
He twisted around with a snarl, trying to scratch his back, but the heavy board they had sealed around his hands made such an action impossible.  
He heard the heavy snores of number 48 in the cell across the hall.  
Then he heard the faint thud and the muffled cry of indignation as the younger Slicer brother silenced the irritating noise.  
Number 49 growled in irritation,  
"Shut _up_ big brother, I was trying to sleep!"  
"So was i, before you woke me in such a rude manner!"  
"You call that sleeping? You sounded like a foghorn."  
"Well at least I don't TALK in my sleep, the stuff you say at night makes me wonder if youre as single as you claim."  
_Thud_.  
"Alright, settle down you two, you'll have enough action to last you a lifetime tommorrow."  
Came the amused voice of the guard.  
The hall was immediately filled with a pressing silence. Tomorrow was execution day, and everyone knew it. The guards knew, and to the prisoners immense irritation the guards did nothing to calm their fear.  
They only joked about it, as though the lives of murderers meant nothing to them. Well, not that they did anyway.

He grunted, and shifted into a more comfortable position on the rough wooden bench with the filthy blanket on it. He didn't feel like sleeping, even though he would probably never sleep again after tomorrow.  
He grinned, and whistled a small tune that gradually turned into a song.  
"...I know a song that will get on their nerves, get on their nerves, get on their nerves,I know a song that will get on their nerves, and this is how it goes..." His voice slowly increased in volume, until he was almost shouting it out.  
Immediately a chorus of angry voices sounded from the various cells around him.  
"-Will you BE QUIET!-"  
"-I'm gonna wring his skinny neck-"  
"-Isn't it enough that the stupid guards have to-"  
"-If my hands were free I'd blow you to smithereens-!"  
"-Sixty-six, I'm gonna count to three, and if you haven't-"  
"-I'm gonna break down the door!-"  
"ALRIGHT SHUT UP!!! Sixty-six, I'll chuck you in the isolation cell if you don't keep quiet."  
Barry sniggered, but willingly stopped singing. The surrounding prisoners slowly quieted down, most of them trying to get some sleep before sunrise.  
Of course it was not all of them who was to be executed, a few only had to stay for a lifetime in prison.  
But not Barry.

He closed his eyes and breathed slowly in and out, an almost peaceful look on his face.  
Tomorrow it would all be over.  
But strangely enough, he wasnt scared. He just felt oddly relaxed, the news having seeped in hours before.  
He also felt slightly proud at having got this far, and that they would remember his name with fear and possibly also disgust for many years after he was gone.  
It didn't really matter to him though, because his thoughts had slowly shifted onto something else.  
His wife.

_He opened the back door, shivering slightly from the cold outside, his breath coming out in a faint mist.  
"Hello? Honey, I'm home!"  
He paused, waiting for a response. Nothing.  
"Hey, Nellie, ya there?" He called out while taking off his blood-smeared apron, hanging it on a peg beside the door.  
He waited anxiously for a reply, but when it didn't come he walked across the hall, and opened the door to the kitchen.  
His heart sank as he saw the sight before him.  
The kitchen was a mess, scraps of food were piled on the surfaces, and the door to the cooling room was carelessly flung open.  
Several empty bottles were lying on the floor, one of them in pieces.  
He sighed and shook his head.  
He then went into the cooling room, were he heard a low snoring coming from his worktable.  
"Geez Nellie, why do you always have to do this..." He whispered as he looked at his snoozing wife, who was sitting slumped on a chair.  
He gently shook her, trying to rouse her from her drunken stupor.  
"Wazzgoingon?" She mumbled thickly and jerked her head up, so her wavy brown hair swung foreward and concealed her face.  
"Nellie, its me, I've just come home. Why are you in the cooler room?"  
"Whuz to hot...needed to cool off..."  
She nearly nodded off again, but he shook her shoulder gently once more.  
"Nellie, have you been drinking again?"  
"Noes me havent been drinking nuthin." She said quickly, fixing him with a beady stare.  
"Nellie...You know you shouldent, its not good for you! Remember last time you got sick because of that disgusting stuff? Wasnt that enough to keep you away from the bottle?"  
He sighed in exasperation.  
She stared down into the stone floor, not answering.  
"Come on, you gotta sleep that off. I'll have some food ready if you get hungry-"  
"Piss off. Or hang on, piss off and get me a fag. I need it."  
Barry stopped and looked at her sadly.  
"Nellie, I'm not letting you do this again, I thought we had come to an agreement that you would stop smoking! Heck, now that i think of it, you also said you would stop drinking! What changed Nellie? What happened that made you so unreliable?"  
He stopped and gazed at her, affection clear in his eyes.  
"Why are ya still here? Are you gonna get that fag or what?"  
He looked at her incrediously. "Nellie!"  
His voice was starting to rise in anger.  
Suddenly she raised her hand, and slapped him hard around the face.  
He stood doumbfounded, struck dumb by her action.  
"I'm bloody well not gonna listen to you anymore ya sick bastard! Day in and day out, always so happy about youre job, never displeased as long as you can spend all your time with animal carcasses!I've had enough i tell you, and i don't care about your feelings anymore, so if you want me to stay happy for your sake, I'm not buying it! Go and find some other bitch that 'respects youre feelings' if thats what you want! You always reckon everythings fine, while our money is wasting away and you do nothing to improove our situation! Anytime you wanted you could have gotten another job, that would settle our financial problems, but noooo you were blind, thought it was going well!"  
She finished off her outburst with an angry hiccup, glaring at him with misty eyes.  
The shock of everything she had just said kept him silent for some time, but he somehow regained his gift of speech and managed to choke "But Nellie, why didn't you tell me? If you were that displeased i could have-"  
Her eyes flashed furiosly and she grabbed a bottle lying on the floor, and swung it at him.  
It hit the side of his head with a heavy crunch, and small lights popped before his eyes as he swayed dizzily.  
"You IDIOT!!DIDN'T I JUST SAY THAT I DON'T CARE?! Your nothing but a BASTARD!!"  
Suddenly the rage was just to much.  
He stared at her, eyes unblinking,a tortured grimace spreading on his face,dimly registering her gazing at him in disbelief and fear.  
And then he ended it all, with one single fluid motion.  
He swung his knife._

Barry gasped, the memory of what he had done standing clear in his head.  
It had just been to much...he had tried to escape, tried to end it...  
He had killed his wife.

_A choked scream, a thud, and a throaty gurgle.  
Then silence.  
He stood there, whole body trembling, bloody knife still in hand, gazing down at his wife in horror. What had he done?  
His shoulders shook, as a mad mixture of grief and guilt coursed through his body, causing pained tears to well up in his eyes.  
But then the feeling changed, slowly the grief was exchanged with resentment, the guilt with bitternes. He slowly lifted his knife, gazing at his reflection in the shining steel, and the glistening blood. This was who he was.  
A strange smile slowly appeared on his face, but as he looked down at his wife,  
the grief struck again.  
The knife fell to the floor with a clatter, as he dropped to his knees and sobbed heavily,  
the pool of blood seeping into his trousers._

Barry stared at the grimy prison floor.  
That had been a year ago, and a lot had changed. But the feeling he had felt then, would never change for as long as he lived.  
Which was not long.  
"Hey, get up ya skinny git. Its time." He glanced up, and saw a beefy guard glare at him with his piggy eyes.  
He smiled sadly, and got up with a sigh.  
Maybe at last his pain would end.


End file.
